Your Brand Needs a Presence in the Second Life® Virtual World… But HOW?!The Upsides Entering Second Life promises a whole new world of opportunities for an existing business or brand. Research firm Gartner Inc. estimates that by 2011, 80 percent of active internet users will have an identity in a virtual world and a recent Forrester report predicted that within five years such platforms will become as significant a business tool as websites are today.
Communications, brand awareness, marketing and retail have historically been at the forefront of corporate internet activity and it didn’t take long for real life businesses to exploit these existing benefits then seek to develop further opportunities on the thriving social networking environment that is the Second Life platform. Second Life’s 3D environment combined with real-time voice and text communication also provides businesses with almost limitless opportunities for product testing, business model analysis, market research, product feedback, recruitment, training and maybe most excitingly real-time organisational collaboration on projects.
Real world businesses will find great value in Second Life by using their presence to enhance their productivity by reducing their employees’ travelling time as well as cutting travel and accommodation costs by using of Second Life for in-house training, meetings and events. Some will find their value from the fact that prototypes can be quickly and inexpensively created using the Second Life viewer’s built in building tools. Others will use the platform as a point of contact with the public and their customers for recruiting, exploring innovative retail techniques and market research.
Much like at the onset of the internet phenomenon, it will be the most forward-looking companies that will reap the highest returns when everyone has an avatar. Against cost, the potential upside in global market reach is quite staggering!
Another significant attraction of the Second Life platform to real world business is the relatively inexpensive start up and operating costs. Second Life does not require any significant additional technology infrastructure.
The Down-Sides Almost every brand that has created a presence in Second Life has paid and is paying to host land, though perhaps (but not always) well built, that creates no resident interest and maintains pitiful traffic.
Why? When an organisation creates its first island, a technically proficient ‘expert’ is employed to create the space. What results is a new and isolated presence sitting in cyberspace, visited by few. It is only once the space provides consistent interest or spawns a community that traffic improves and the investment has any value and that doesn't seem to happen very often.
Professional island creators can neither provide resident interest nor community for your brand. They walk away. You are left alone to figure out what to do with your new investment.
The Solution Don’t Stand Alone!!
Who are We? Irie Tsure has been established in Second Life for two years. From a £10 investment she has achieved the following:-
Irie Tsure has recently completed two quite unique and brilliant books on how to get started and how to operate a business in Second Life (published by Hodder worldwide from September 2008) and as such her own profile (though already elevated) is about to be considerably and globally enhanced.
What is the Business Model? It is important to our business model that your business or brand is no longer isolated from the action. Our commercial and brand clients’ involvement subsidises our residential community. The more residents live on the estate then the more attractive as a commercial location we become. The more brands that locate within our estate, guided (where required) by our experience then the higher quality the content and interest we provide to our residents. The more brands that are involved in our estate then the cheaper we can offer homes to Second Life residents and as such the expansion process drives itself…
Benefiting from Second Life is about belonging to and providing for the community.
To discuss achieving a new level of value from the Second Life platform for your brands, organisations and services, contact Irie Tsure at irie@irievibes.biz |
